My son wanted a wall hanger for one of his guitars because the floor stand was taking up a lot of space in his small room. I looked online for some options and finally decided to just make one. I glued up some scraps of Mahogany (center strip), Maple, and Cherry (outside strips). I basically designed it as I was building it which always seems to work out pretty well for me. I knew he would probably change his mind on which guitar he wanted to hang and since they each had different style heads I wanted the hanger to accommodate either type. So I came up with a design that would let the fingers the head hangs on rotate to confirm with the shape of the guitar head. After I made the first one, he decided he wanted one for each guitar so I made two of them for him.

My wife shared pictures of them on Facebook which resulted in one of her friends wanting to buy a set. I just delivered a pair to her this weekend. That is the first project I’ve ever sold.

I am a budding Shopsmith enthusiast and this is my 3rd Shopsmith (the other two being older Model 10ER machines). This one wasn’t in too bad of shape when I got it (last picture), but I still decided to tear it down and completely refurbish it. I enjoy rebuilding old woodworking machines (I also have a couple vintage jointers and a lathe in my collection) and when I do, I like to give them a personal touch. I don’t like for them to look like everybody else’s machine.

I’m also a huge New Orleans Saints fan and had decided to go with a paint scheme honoring them about half way through their historic Super Bowl season. The only change I made to my design after the Super Bowl was to add the Super Bowl XLIV logo.

These are fun machines to use, and now that I’ve got it looking so great I can’t wait to get it all dirty from use!

I just got my Shopsmith Mark 5 with a bandsaw running and this simple little bandsaw box was the first project I made with the bandsaw. It was a rush job just to get some experience under my belt with the bandsaw as I haven’t touched one since high school shop class 20 years ago. It was done within an hour start to finish. So there are some imperfections and I didn’t sand it down as far as I should have. And I kept it very simple – no tray or drawers or anything.

The wood is red aromatic cedar. I used some natural Watco Danish Oil leftover from a previous project. When that had mostly dried I put on a coat of Johnson’s Paste Wax. The third picture shows the remaining block of wood with no finish applied.

Although rushed and flawed, this was a very fun little project. The bandsaw is so much fun and I can’t wait to make more of these things.

My dad is a Vietnam veteran who never misses an opportunity to let other soldiers know they are appreciated. I wanted to return that and let him know that he and his service was appreciated. His medals were never cared for or displayed properly so I wanted to fix that.

I wanted to do a Greene & Greene project and I was inspired by a “Wood Whisperer” viewer project – the Greene & Greene style display case for the Bible.

I’m a very novice woodworker without many tools or resources for project wood and always on a tight budget. I couldn’t afford to order good wood for this. But I had been given a stack of pallets so that’s what I used. I believe they are oak.

At the time I made this, I had a jointer but not a planer. So after removal of nails and very thorough inspection for any other foreign materials, I dimensioned them using my Craftsman table saw, Shopsmith 10ER, and the jointer.

I used a dado blade and a hand chisel to make the joints. It took a few practice pieces to get the process down. I then used my dado blade to cut a rabbet on the back of the pieces for the back panel, and a saw kerf to hold the Plexiglas front and marked the location of the pegs.

The square pegs intimidated me at first, but turned out to not be a problem. Since I can’t afford ebony, I made them out of a scrap piece of oak and used ebony stain. I cut a rabbet with the dado blade set to about 1/2” wide and the height set so that the material remaining was 5/16” thick. I then ripped off a 5/16” square strip. With my miter saw set to 15 degrees and using a stop block for consistency, I cut all four sides of the end forming a pyramid. Then I used a fine toothed hand saw and miter box to cut the end off about 1/8”.

To make the 5/16” square holes in the boards, I used a 9/32” bit to drill a hole, then squared it with a ¼” hand chisel. Then just tap the pegs into place with a piece of soft wood and light taps with a hammer.

Using the disc sander on the Shopsmith with the table set to 15 degrees, I created the pyramid shape on the end of the fingers.

This was followed by some final sanding and a couple coats of “natural” Watco Danish oil. It dries fast and gave just the type of finish I wanted – it brings out the grain and gives good protection with a slight sheen and it still feels like wood, not plastic.

While the case was clamped and glued, I put the inside display together using foam board and spray adhesive where necessary. After everything was dry, I attached it and the plywood back.

I see all the little flaws and blemishes, but, I must say I’m still pretty darn proud of it.

My goal with this was to make something nice for my dad to show that his military service was appreciated and to challenge my very novice woodworking skills. I think I accomplished both goals. I made a couple mistakes along the way but having watched The Wood Whisperer make and fix mistakes I was able to fix them which boosted my confidence.

My dad absolutely loved it, so I guess my mission was accomplished.

Update: After several years, Dad finally got an updated set of ribbons and medals from the USMC. I updated the box with the new awards. New picture added.

I built this “Cowboy Cooler” for my sister and her husband for Christmas 2009. I first saw one of these as a mass produced unit at a local sporting good store. I thought it was a really neat item, but way overpriced. After that, I started seeing them pop up at road-side vendors and flea markets and such.

Except for the side handles, this was built entirely from broken down pallets. The ice chest is an Igloo brand I purchased at the above mentioned sporting goods store. It didn’t have a drain, so I bought a cooler drain there as well and connected it to PVC plumbing coming out the bottom and over to the spigot. The Native American silhouette and bottle opener were purchased from a vendor at a local festival.

I didn’t follow any plans. I had a rough idea in my head of what I wanted to do, started with the ice chest and just built around it.

So I’ve just about completed my first major woodworking project and thought I would share some pictures.

The house we’re in now has a fireplace in the living room, but it was ugly. There’s a brick hearth, but the fireplace itself is surrounded by tile and there is no mantel (a fireplace is just incomplete without a mantel!). The tile was installed quite sloppily. There’s a groove cut into the tile a couple inches from the edge that looks like it was cut with a dull rotary saw and no straight edge for a guide. One of the tiles on the left side sticks out from the wall about 1/4” further than the other tiles. Seriously, I don’t know why they even tried if that was the best they could do.

Here’s the “before” picture. This is what I started with.

I chose to use 3/4” thick MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) for most of the project because it’s cheaper than real hardwood and I felt there was a pretty good chance I would screw something up and if I did, it wouldn’t be a costly mistake. I would have preferred a natural wood finish to the project, but since I used MDF, I decided to paint it. (I’ve read about staining MDF and I may experiment with that later, but didn’t want to do that for this project.) Since this is my first real major project, I looked at it as a training exercise. Maybe in a year or two I can go back and redo it with real wood that can be stained instead of painted.

I started with two simple box columns on either side. The columns are assembled with simple butt joints – no fancy joinery. The screw holes are counter-sunk so they can be covered and hidden with spackle. Because I’m covering up the tile instead of ripping it out, I couldn’t screw the columns directly to the wall. I thought about using Liquid Nails and gluing them to the tile, but I want to be able to remove it all if necessary (or if I redo the project). So I used a couple of “L” brackets at the top of each column to attach them to the wall. The brackets will be covered up by the mantel piece.

In that second picture, you can see the gap between the left column and the fireplace caused by the uneven tile. I’ll cover that up that gap later with some trim. The gap between the column and the wall on the left outside is even worse. Unfortunately, because of the bad tile installation, there’s not much I can do about it other than cover it with some trim.

For the bridge beam between the columns, I used two pieces of 3/4” MDF glued and screwed together (from the back so I didn’t have screw holes to cover). I removed the outside wall of the columns, screwed the bridge beam to the inside walls of the columns, then replaced the outside walls. I used two shower curtain tension rods to support the weight of the bridge beam and hold it level. My wife held it all steady while I attached it to the columns.

At this point I was ready to attach the mantel. This was the only piece that was real wood. I used the straightest 2”x12” I could find at Lowes which I then cut to length and trimmed the width down to 11”. We like a big mantel and this certainly does the job. I also used “L” brackets here to attach the mantel to the columns and bridge beam. This kept the mantel level and made attaching it easy. I didn’t have to drill through the top of the mantel or drill at an angle from underneath and the brackets will be hidden later.

I didn’t put much effort into sanding the mantel. I just went over with some 150 grit sandpaper on my electric sander. I also put a decorative edge on it with my router (and a borrowed router bit). While I was sanding and routing, my wife put a base coat of paint on the columns & bridge.

After painting the mantel, we were so impressed with how well it looked, that we couldn’t help putting some stuff on the mantel and lighting a fire!

But, it’s still not finished yet! Next came all of the trim and molding. I put crown molding all the way around the underside of the mantel. This turned out the be the hardest part of the whole project. That crown molding almost kicked my butt, but I finally showed it who was boss. I then put some baseboard around the base of the columns, and flat trim on the face of the columns and the bridge beam to give it a little decorative touch.

I still have some final touches to add. I’m going to put some quarter-round trim along the inside of all of the flat trim, and I still need cover the gaps between the columns and the wall (you can see the edge of the tile behind the column in the picture above). I still see all the little imperfections and they drive me crazy on one level, but overall I’m very satisfied with the outcome and proud of the work I did. The total cost of the materials was under $100, but I bought a few new tools that put the total spent on the project just over that amount. It took me three weekends of work, but it was time well spent. I learned a lot and had fun doing it. Having done it once now, I could probably do it again in one weekend.

We still have a lot of work to do in that room otherwise, but I think the new fireplace surround and mantel went a long way into making the room more inviting and cozy. I took a “before” picture of the overall room before I started, but I forgot the take the same “after” picture. When I do that, I will post the two for comparison.